Cost-effectiveness analysis of Telemedicine for primary healthcare in Amansie-West District, Ghana

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JUNE, 2016
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Abstract
Access to healthcare remains a major issue facing people living in remote parts of Ghana; hence making interventions to improve healthcare provision necessary. However, the limited supply of resources calls for the need to ensure efficiency in the allocation of resources towards healthcare interventions. With its introduction in the Amansie-West District, telemedicine has improved provision of healthcare. There is, nonetheless, no evidence of economic evaluation of this project. The study sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of telemedicine for primary health care in the Amansie-West District. A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) was conducted using a study population of four primary healthcare sites; namely Keniago, Tontotkrom, Manso Ankam and Manso Abore. Costing was done from the perspective of the healthcare provider and capital assets were annuitized at a 3% discount rate. Data on the costs of telemedicine and the conventional primary healthcare were quantified manually. The annuitization of capital outlays and Incremental Cost Effectiveness Ratio (ICER) and Marginal Cost Effectiveness Ratio (MCER) were computed manually.. Sensitivity analysis was conducted with Microsoft Excel 2007 to assess robustness of the ICER. Annualized total cost of $305,042.93 and $227,007.9 were associated with the conventional Prmary Healthcare (CPHc) and Telemedicine (TM) respectively. The ICER for TM was -$453.7 and MCER with an assumption of 50% utilization of TM services was $255.65.. ; indicating a 80.63% reduction in cost per effectiveness.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Health Policy, Management and Economics, College of Health Sciences, School of Public Health, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Public Health in Health Services Planning and Management,
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